(NaturalNews) Throughout U.S. history, certain selected groups of citizens have been subjected to extreme verbal, judicial and even physical abuse at the hands of bigoted oppressors. The historical abuse of African-Americans — subjected to generations of abusive language and racism that still lingers today — was villainously summed up with a bigoted hate speech label I dare not utter here.

Gay Americans were similarly subjected to the label of “f-@@-t,” a hate-based derogatory slur invoked to demean a human being because of their sexual orientation. It was this campaign of verbal abuse and derogatory hate speech that helped give rise to violence against gays in America.

Importantly, every effort to demean and denigrate a selectively targeted class of citizens — whether for their skin color, their sexual orientation or their beliefs — has been preceded by a campaign of verbal abuse intended to dehumanize that targeted group. The invocation and use of bigoted, derogatory labels lays the social and cultural groundwork for not only discrimination but even actual violence committed against the groups being targeted.